Critique of the film American History X

American History X suggests that the American Nazi 'skinhead' movement is attractive to disaffected white, young men because it provides such individuals with a sense of community, family and belonging that they lack at home and in larger society. When the protagonist of the film Derek loses his father in a race-related incident, Derek becomes the leader of his own band of white supremacists. Only after serving time in jail for brutally murdering two African-American young men in retaliation for stealing his car does Derek begin to experience a shift in his consciousness and a Malcolm X-style jailhouse conversion. After being forced to see blacks as human beings, serving time behind bars, Derek leaves prison determined to extricate himself from the grasp of his former group's influence.

American History X is not about organized white supremacists like the Klu Klux Klan, under whose white robes lurk the faces of judges and respected community members (although Derek is a reasonably good student at his high school). What motivates skinheads like Derek to embrace racism is a sense of hopelessness and disaffection with society and their lives. They are united by a common culture of drugs, booze, tattooing themselves with racist images, heavy metal music and the idea that whiteness makes them superior to others in their racially diverse but Balkanized world. While the film does not excuse the skinheads' attitudes or action it does show them as products of an environment where racial and class identity define one's entire life: every group has its own niche in the social landscape, and gains its sense of purpose by defining itself against other groups. The world of lower-middle class skinheads like Derek offers few opportunities for young men to feel a sense of esteem and self-respect.

Through a series of flashbacks, the film shows that Derek belongs to a family whose values are based in isolation and hatred, rather than acceptance. His family is blue-collar, made up of a firefighter father, a sick mother suffering from smoking-related breathing problems, and a younger brother and two sisters. All are struggling to survive in an area where they can see the beauty of the Californian American dream, but never live it. One of his sisters does go to college, but her liberal views are a thin, unheard and mocked voice in a world dominated by men. Later in the film, when Derek's mother brings a Jewish man into the house, Derek is enraged and abusive: even though he is younger than his mother, male, racist, aggressive values reign supreme in the household.

While social factors, like the divided demographics of where the family lives and the family's relative poverty, cause Derek's feelings to fester, it is clear that Derek and his father see the world from a lens in which they always receive the short end of the metaphorical stick. The issue of affirmative action brings forth rage-filled diatribes by his father at the dinner table: "America's about the best man for the job," shouts Derek's father because he feels that no one appreciates the sacrifice that he has made as a firefighter for the common good.

Derek's racist beliefs are cemented, and became the springboard to his activism and leadership of the skinheads when his father is killed by a black man, fighting a fire in a crack house in an inner-city neighborhood. When two young African-Americans try to steal his car, Derek is determined that he, unlike his beloved father, will emerge the winner. The film makes it clear that Derek has been waiting for this to happen. Again, the film does not excuse the theft of his vehicle, but indicates that the world is filled with potential justifications for racism, and Derek is looking for such 'reasons' to engage in hateful action. Derek is both a product of his environment and his simmering male adolescent rage.

Derek sent to prison for three years. His younger brother tries to assume Derek's role by harassing immigrants and other non-whites. He also finds himself, like Derek, of being in the uncomfortable position of being taught by an articulate, charismatic, and caring African-American history teacher in high school. This individual provides the moral center of the film, and explains the reason for its title: only by gaining a sense of history and looking beyond one's immediate ethnic enclave and past can an individual gain a sense of perspective upon the world.

Prison humbles and humanizes Derek. Although Derek tries to hold fast to his white supremacist ways, this proves difficult, given that prisoners are often united out of their own-self-interest against their guards. After being assigned to laundry duty, he must learn to work with African-Americans. He leaves prison resolved to begin a new life, and filled with a new sense of responsibility to set his brother Danny 'straight.' "I kept asking myself all the time, how did I buy into this shit? It was because I was pissed off, and nothing I ever did ever took that feeling away. I killed two guys, Danny, I killed them. And it didn't make me feel any different. It just got me more lost and I'm tired of being pissed off, Danny. I'm just tired of it."